#k. j. parker

[nzbookwyrm]

Subterranean Press will be offering a free ebook every month or so. The first is No Choice by K J Parker.

This is available globally - I had no trouble downloading from New Zealand.

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Long Game - K. J. Parker

K.J. Parker is a master of the novella format. He always delivers excellent twists and a great reading experience. In The Long Game, we follow an unnamed narrator as he grapples with supernatural and political challenges.

The narrator, an adept of the Craft, is able to enter the minds of others to expel interdimensional demons that compel them to do evil deeds. The thing is, throughout the years he's befriended one of the demons and they have a cordial, mutually beneficial relationship.

Things get complicated when he meets Amalasomtha, a young woman with impossible abilities who hails from remote (and believed mythical ) Idalia. Her superiors have tasked her with capturing a demon. As you'd expect from Parker, the truth is nuanced and political in nature. Expect murder, magic, deception, hidden agendas, and glimpses of a larger story, the titular Long Game.

As a massive fan of Parker's writing, I loved the condensed story full of vignettes and jumps in time (used to introduce characters or give us the context of the situation). Like many of Parker's narrators, this one is comically self-absorbed and morally flexible. He's not happy with his current circumstances (doing fieldwork) and would prefer to work as a researcher and a teacher. 

His demonic friend is also weary of his superiors. The idiotic bureaucracy annoys them both, so they help each other and exchange false information to feed their superiors. Except, one of them is playing a longer game.

Parker packs The Long Game with action, twists, and betrayals. He also weaves in playful humor and a healthy dose of cynicism with a light, sure hand. I love the novella format, and The Long Game kept me riveted every second of the wild ride.

[itsagrummel]

books i read in march:

16 ways to defend a walled city by K.J. Parker

9/10, great style, great ideas, great ending. this fanatsy books is about a man finding himself in charge of.. well, you guessed it, defending a walled city. very funny yet surprisingly thoughtful at times. subtraction for talking about racism and xenophobia without knowing much about it. i am absolutely fine with writers not just writing about things they don't experience (obviously). but those shorts parts about the alienating experiences of foreignness felt odd and shallowly researched. apart from those short moments a recommended book.

Oni no Hanayome wa Taberaretai 1-5 by Keiko Sakano

8/10 Yes it's a manga series but let's not be snobbish about it. it looks like a book. it's getting read like a book. it's a book. this series is absolutely soft and simple entertainment. it's about a bride being married to a demon. the series delivers what it promises but nothing else. solid romance escapism. i did not regret buying those books.

Nordic Gods by Johan Egerkrans

10/10 I remember reading this books a couple of years ago and picked it up again for research reasons. Great book as an introduction to nordic, Scandinavian folk and mythology. Nordic Gods does not downplay the pragmatic brutality of skandi folk and myths so i am not sure why that was in the little kids section. Also, normally I don't buy books just for their looks but this time I got the german hardcover edition and it looks great.

My lesbian experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata

10/10 this book was recommended to me and I definitely can see why. This manga talks about mental health and experiences of isolation, anxiety and growing up. A very sweet but raw and honest piece of media not just lonely and/or lesbians can relate to.

[parsleysagerosemarytimemachine]

I've really enjoyed Parker's other historical-inspired fiction, with sarcastic and capable characters thrust into the historical limelight in ways beyond how they would ever expect, so when I saw this at work I immediately picked up the entire trilogy. This first book has already rewarded me for that decision; the leader of a band of battlefield scavengers, on the run from his ignoble past, is pulled into what could be the beginning of a world-defining war, and all he wants to do is not be seen. Really highly recommend this, or any of Parker's other books, especially if you like a look at the sausage of history being made.

[filipmagnuswrites]

A Practical Guide to Conquering the World by K. J. Parker - Book Review

Series: The SiegePages: 350Genre: Quirky, dark fantasy The first two novels in K. J. Parker’s Siege trilogy did much to create a kaleidoscopic world from the singular position of the City, the capital of a great Empire that has been Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City told the story of an engineer not of the Robur race who struggled to hold out in the face of overwhelming odds, protecting this…

[ohyoubuggin]

Spiderman Movie Premiere 2002

[catiecriesalot]

So when I heard Ketheric Thorm speak the first time I had the intense and insatiable urge to create…

I’m gonna dip into bard for viscous mockery to complete him

[izzystrawhat]

Ultimate Spider-Daddy

Peter and Jonah from the 1st Ultimate Spider-Man issue. Two very hot sexy Daddies

[drowningparty]

❝You spend a lot of time sitting in complete darkness, people have to repeat things several times before you reply, and unexpected loud noises or someone asking you to pass the mustard is likely to reduce you to floods of hysterical tears. Not your fault, you can't help it, your record shows that you were once a brave and reliable officer with a bright future ahead of you in Applied Evil, but that was then and this is now and we have a department to run.❞

K J Parker, Inside Man.

[aqueerpolysocialist]

"... death isn't like the last ship east in autumn; if you miss it, you're stuck where you are for at least three months until the weather improves. Death is prepared to wait. It's always there for you, like your mother."

K J Parker, A Practical Guide To Conquering The World

[theeloquentpage]

Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead by K J Parker

New Review: Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead by K J Parker #review #fantasy

From one of the most original voices in fantasy comes a twisted tale of murder, betrayal, and battlefield salvage. There’s no formal training for battlefield salvage. You just have to pick things up as you go along. Swords, armour, arrows – and the bodies, of course. Over the years, Saevus Corax has picked up a lot of things. Some of them have made him decent money, others have brought nothing…

[nzbookwyrm]

[strange-hymns]

The world is full of idiots, and always has been. But sometimes I wonder why such a disproportionate quantity of them end up running other people’s lives.

- K.J. Parker, How To Rule An Empire And Get Away With It

[pargery]

Life, he decided, is a bit like an optimist reading a Martin Amis novel; he keeps going, no matter what, just in case it gets good towards the end.

-- from Doughnut by Tom Holt

[wherekizzialives]

December Reads

And I closed the year reading a further nine books, four of which I started back in January and have read month by month, since their chapters followed the changing seasons. One of the four was an almanac for 2023 so I won’t be including a review as, although I really enjoyed it, there isn’t one being produced for this year and it seems silly to link to something that is now out of date. I’ve…

[filipmagnuswrites]

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It by K. J. Parker - Book Review

K. J. Parker is a master of voice. His Siege Trilogy accents this mastery, providing the reader with narrators with personalities large enough they threaten to drown out most other voices. How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, the middle book in this trilogy, has to contend with a difficult task: offering a worthy follow-up to the ironic, cynical voice of the first book’s protagonist Orhan.…